[Lemmy]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Personally, I couldn't eat horse because I view them as a pet, not food. I salivate when I look at the chickens, pigs, ducks, and turkeys in the morning. I don't salivate looking at the dogs, horses, donkeys, goats, cats, etc.

I'm with you on the dogs, horses, donkeys and cats, but you need to go to a good Indian joint and try some spicy goat curry.

[Canadian_Mind]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

Personally, I couldn't eat horse because I view them as a pet, not food. I salivate when I look at the chickens, pigs, ducks, and turkeys in the morning. I don't salivate looking at the dogs, horses, donkeys, goats, cats, etc.

I'm with you on the dogs, horses, donkeys and cats, but you need to go to a good Indian joint and try some spicy goat curry.

Eh, I might give it a whirl. Just never thought of goats as food before. I know what they eat, and I don't want any of that shit in my system.

[ShepherdsDog]

If it walks on four legs and has hooves I have nothing against eating it. Living here amongst the Chinese, I've found the best policy when eating a meat you're unsure of, and it tastes good, is not to ask what it is. I know I'm always safe though when I eat halal or kosher.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

I like eating dumb animals, not smart ones.

So I guess most people are on the menu?

[Canadian_Mind]

PublicAnimalNo9 PublicAnimalNo9:

Canadian_Mind Canadian_Mind:

I like eating dumb animals, not smart ones.

So I guess most people are on the menu?

Only non-smokers.

[BeaverFever]

I expect that far more animals die inhumanely that we'd like to admit.

[Strutz]

That was disturbing Beaver...

[Strutz]

This might seem silly but seeing (and being reminded) of how "mass production" works with chickens (fucking horrifying) reminds me of how well off my grandfather's chickens were...

I spent all my childhood summers on my grandparent's farm and my granparents raised chickens for eggs & for meat. The chickens had a big yard to run around in that was fenced in and surrounded by trees to provide them shade (fruit trees, as my granparent's main thing was growing fruit) and they had a hut in which they spent the night (grandpa ushered them in there in the late evening) to keep them safe from the coyotes and such. I used to gather the eggs every day and some hens would escavate their own nest in the dirt in the yard rather than use the nesting boxes provided in the hut, I used to have to walk around the yard and check for that possibility! I remember wiping them and sorting them (smaller ones kept for in house use) and the fella that would come around once a week to pick up the filled cartons of eggs that I assume then went for distribution to supermarkets. I remember thinking as a kid that they were different from the chickens "in the city" as their eggs were bigger, yolks orange rather than yellow, and double yolks were not unusual. Of course I didn't know then that that's because they ate a natural diet of grain and vegetable scraps (tops and peelings that I'd take out to them every evening after dinner, they loved it when the corn was ripe and we'd have fresh corn every day as they would get the cobs and pick them dry) and lived a fairly normal life as opposed to in a cage. I remember that at a certain point in late summer my grandfather would separate some into the smaller yard (those that didn't lay eggs anymore) and that these would be the ones destined to be their winter's meat.

I stayed on and lived with my grandparents into the fall one year (when I was 14) and was there for butchering time... tree stump by the the yard, axe to the neck... and it was done. Very quick. Didn't really bother me all that much... afterall I assumed that was how it was done everywhere. Obviously I learned differently...

It might surprise some to know if you never were around chickens much that they are kinda social... some actually liked to be petted and picked up. But I always understood that they were providers, not pets. But they had a pretty good life for a couple of years before they met their maker.

Anyway... thought I'd share...

[ShepherdsDog]

I think I've mentioned it before, but my dad's 'hobby' included a dozen or so cattle, 30 butcher sows, 50 or so turkeys and 500 chickens. Funny it was his hobby, but I was the one who worked on it, including my own horse, which I had to learn how to ride bareback proficiently before I was allowed a saddle.

From a very young age, when I first visited the family farm I was exposed to the 'circle of life'. I witnessed animals being born and animals being butchered. later when I was roped into maintaining my dad's hobby I helped hand raise animals, and later took part in their butchering and processing. Everything was 'free range', even the chickens, which had an outdoor enclosure to roam in during the day.

For me cats and dogs were the only real 'pets' everything else served another purpose, usually as food. We also did a fair bit of hunting, always having venison, moose and occasionally elk in the freezer, along with pickerel and a few geese or ducks.

[Strutz]

Awesome Shep...

Neat to know someone else who knows how it should be done. I remember the young chicks too, when they first got their feathers. I only vaguely remember the cattle, as my grandfather stopped raising them, mostly to have more space for the fruit trees rather than for pasture room. There was a neighboring farm that raised cattle for meat. I have pics from when I was a kid of that farm, my grandparents always got their beef and pork and sausage from them. Nowadays it's a big freaking big-box department store complex And where my grandparent's farm used to be... sub-divided and 3 homes now where there used to be just an orchard... breaks my heart...

[yukondug]

I blame my anorexia on Beavers video.
Meat lovers pizza anybody?!?!?!

[BeaverFever]

Sadly, I don't think the types of farming that Strutz and Shep describe really play a significant part in Candian's food supply anymore. If you're buying your meat and dairy in the supermarket (or in most resaurants) and not from a local organic farmer, then the animal probably had a fate similar to those in the video. Plus it was probably overfed with hormones, pharmaceuticals, its dead bretheren and other unnatural feed that is just no good for human consumption.

Unfortunately, many of us city-slickers don't have many options.

[andyt]

we've got the options if we're willing and/or able to pay for them. If everyone started to demand "ethical" meat the price would go thru the roof.

[Caelon]

As with most graphic images the video uses selected examples. I never saw a dairy like they were trying to represent as the norm. I have been in old style stanchion barns, free housing set ups, pipeline milkers, herring bone parlours, carousel parlours, etc and have not seen what they depict as the norm. Calves were housed initially in crates where they had room to turn around and were not restrained. They were intially given colustrum (cows first milk which is high in antibodies)and then switched to milk replacer. Heifers and bull calves were treated the same. The big difference was the bull calves were sold and the majority of hiefers were kept as repalcement stock.

Antibiotics are used in the the livestock industry to prevent disease and promote optimum growth. Each antibiotic has a specified period before slaughter that it must be withdrawn. The withdrawal period is to remove all traces from the meat before the animal is slaughtered for human consumption.

Andyt is correct in that if you wish all livestock to be raised as they were 100 years ago then the prices would sky rocket. There would be so much less available in the grocery stores that supply/demenad economics would cause a dramtic increase in prices.

[BeaverFever]

Caelon Caelon:

I never saw a dairy like they were trying to represent as the norm.

Did you ever work in a factory farm? I know the Canadian Dairy industry makes special effort to assure Canadians that they have fewer factory farm operations in Canada and there are supposedly higher standards than the US counterparts (at least when it comes to hormones, etc) but Canada's animal cruelty laws are among the weakest in the western world and most agricultural activity is exempt from what little laws do exist.

$1:

Calves were housed initially in crates where they had room to turn around and were not restrained.

Don't you think its inhumane to force a creature to live a crate, regardless of whether they can turn around or not?

$1:

Antibiotics are used in the the livestock industry to prevent disease and promote optimum growth. Each antibiotic has a specified period before slaughter that it must be withdrawn. The withdrawal period is to remove all traces from the meat before the animal is slaughtered for human consumption.

Again, there is a difference between Canada and the US regarding drug use, but there is a book by former Health Canada scientist-turned whistle-blower Shiv Chopra called "Corrupt to the Core" where he details how government offices were broken into, files were stolen and scientists were bullied and threatened by department officials to approve drugs they felt were unsafe for humans and/or animals. You can listen to the story here: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/current_20111122_88813.mp3

Further, you miss two important facts about the use of antibiotics in farm animals: 1) The over-use of antibotics on healthy animals to "prevent disease" rather than CURE disease has given rise to an explosion of anti-biotic resistant bacteria. Farm use is the single largest cause of this. The only reason heavy antibotic doses are given to healthy animals is because so many animals are kept in such unnaturally close quarters that diseases spread so rapidly. No doctor would give antibiotics to a healthy human, but we give it to healthy animals to protect the merchandise and the result is antibiotic resistant germs. 2) The effects of "optimum growth" you refer to is shown in the video: animals such as hogs and chickens become so large they can not support their own weight and many starve to death or have respiratory and other problems that cause animal suffering.

$1:

Andyt is correct in that if you wish all livestock to be raised as they were 100 years ago then the prices would sky rocket. There would be so much less available in the grocery stores that supply/demenad economics would cause a dramtic increase in prices.

Doing things the wrong way will always be cheaper than doing things the right way. Any time you bring in quality control prices increase. All food would be (and was) cheaper without minimum standards in place.

Yes, the dirt-cheap, hormone and drug-laced food where the animals are tortured to death in factory farms would no longer exist and the quality food that would replace it would cost more in comparison. BUT that quality food would cost less than it currently does because demand for it would increase. Currently, its supply is limited so prices are high. Further, it's currently marketed as a "premium" or "value add" product (often by the same agri-business that also market the cheap unhealthy garbage) so prices for quality food are further inflated for higher profit margins.

But you can get the details on that here: